Andy in the Media

At the founding of the USFA (called the Amateur Fencers’ League of America), the Executive Committee was formed with two members of each of five clubs in New York City.

To become a member of the “League”, a man (women could not join) had to be proposed by one member and seconded by another. The league was not going to allow professionals to prejudice their national championships. The league was populated by the “right people” in New York society.

Canine ‘social worker’ gives strays a second chance

They’re mangy, dirty and diseased. They wander Shreveport’s streets hungry, disoriented and desperate. They seldom draw even the briefest glance from passersby, and when they do get attention, it’s usually from an irate home or business owner, who quickly shoos them away.

They often are viewed as the scourge of the city. Yet, they’re Andy Shaw’s best friends.

HOLLYWOOD (CNN) — As the success of “The Mask of Zorro” attests, movie audiences are fascinated by the art of swordplay, and they have been for some time. “Zorro” is merely the latest evidence of our continuing intrigue with the ancient art of face-to-face combat.

Douglas Fairbanks brought fencing’s flash to life on the big screen in 1920; Tyrone Power carried the rapier forward in 1940; and Richard Anderson and Stewart Granger’s climactic duel in the 1952 action film “Scaramouche” is hard to beat in terms of audience involvement.

Now Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones of “Zorro” are taking the ancient spectacle into the dawn of the new millennium. And the audience is drawn into their duel.